Only the very rarest of princes can endure even a little criticism, and few of them can put up with even a pause in the adulation. Walter Lippmann More Quotes by Walter Lippmann More Quotes From Walter Lippmann The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want. Walter Lippmann confused real art In really hard times the rules of the game are altered. The inchoate mass begins to stir. It becomes potent, and when it strikes, it strikes with incredible emphasis. Those are the rare occasions when a national will emerges from the scattered, specialized, or indifferent blocs of voters who ordinarily elect the politicians. Those are for good or evil the great occasions in a nation's history. Walter Lippmann hard-times evil games I generalized rashly: That is what kills political writing, this absurd pretence that you are delivering a great utterance. You never do. You are just a puzzled man making notes about what you think. You are not building the Pantheon, then why act like a graven image? You are drawing sketches in the sand which the sea will wash away. Walter Lippmann writing men thinking It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most. Walter Lippmann government Here lay the political genius of Franklin Roosevelt: that in his own time he knew what were the questions that had to be answered, even though he himself did not always find the full answer. Walter Lippmann political genius answers In the end, advertising rests upon the fact that consumers are a fickle and superstitious mob, incapable of any real judgment as to what it wants or how it is to get what it thinks it likes. Walter Lippmann fickle real thinking Men command fewer words than they have ideas to express, and language, as Jean Paul said, is a dictionary of faded metaphors. Walter Lippmann language men ideas Where love exists with self-respect and joy, where a fine environment is provided for the child, where the parents live under conditions that neither stunt the imagination nor let it run to uncontrolled fantasy, there you have the family that modern men are seeking to create. Walter Lippmann running men children Whether or not birth control is eugenic, hygienic, and economic, it is the most revolutionary practice in the history of sexual morals. Walter Lippmann moral birth-control practice There are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human. Walter Lippmann regal self two In a place where everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks very much. Walter Lippmann thinking The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act. Walter Lippmann light men reality A democracy which fails to concentrate authority in an emergency inevitably falls into such confusion that the ground is prepared for the rise of a dictator. Walter Lippmann democracy confusion fall Inevitably our opinions cover a bigger space, a longer reach of time, a greater number of things, than we can directly observe. They have, therefore, to be pieced together out of what others have reported and what we can imagine. Walter Lippmann space together numbers A man cannot be a good doctor and keep telephoning his broker between patients nor a good lawyer with his eye on the ticker. Walter Lippmann doctors eye men Men have been barbarians much longer than they have been civilized. They are only precariously civilized, and within us there is the propensity, persistent as the force of gravity, to revert under stress and strain, under neglect or temptation, to our first natures. Walter Lippmann stress temptation men Freedom to speak... can be maintained only by promoting debate. Walter Lippmann promoting debate speak So far as I am concerned I have no doctrinaire belief in free speech. In the interest of the war it is necessary to sacrifice some of it. Walter Lippmann sacrifice speech war The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not the foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose. Walter Lippmann kings ears people The private citizen, beset by partisan appeals for the loan of his Public Opinion, will soon see, perhaps, that these appeals are not a compliment to his intelligence, but an imposition on his good nature and an insult to his sense of evidence. Walter Lippmann comeback public-opinion citizens
